


In all things

by parabuttai



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: AU, F/M, Human AU, coffee shop AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 13:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17489285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parabuttai/pseuds/parabuttai
Summary: “By all means, continue your molestations,” he smirks “don’t mind me.  I’ll just stand here while you accost my personage.”“I’d like to see you spell personage,” mutters Jude, withdrawing her hand reluctantly from his firm chest.Everyone's human, and they all work together in a coffee shop.  What could go wrong?





	In all things

It’s a muggy, autumn day when their parents die. Jude didn’t see it happen, she was in the café playing hide and seek behind the sofa with her twin sister Taryn while Vivi, the oldest, painstakingly painted her nails a brilliant shade of red and kept a lenient eye on the pair of them.  The café was her parents pride and Jude loved everything about it, from the red, leather chairs smattered comfortably around the room, to the whipped cream covered hot chocolate her dad snuck to her and sisters when he thought mum wasn’t looking.  She didn’t it happen, but she does see the tall man, in a black suit with a red pocket square enter, disregarding the “closed” sign on the door entirely.  His name is Madoc and he’s a lawyer.  Jude doesn’t really know what a lawyer is.  The one time she asked her mum left her know clearer.  What she does know is that he is also Vivi’s birth father, although her sister has only ever called their dad by that term.  They see him every so often at Christmas and Thanksgiving with his wife, Oriana. Today, he tells them that their parents are dead, and then he takes everything.

 She can’t even hate him for it, not really.  Legally the rights to all the recipes, all the protocols, even the deal of the day sign, which Jude’s mother painstakingly painted belong to the Greenbriar’s and their lawyer Madoc is simply the tool by which they have claimed them.  The Greenbriar family owns the Greenbriar franchise which stretches across America in a multitude of coffee shops and cosy cafes, just like the one lovingly owned by their parents.  As soon as her parents are dead Madoc swoops in with a team of lawyers to reclaim the property and get it up and running under new management.   As well as taking the café he takes all the children in, his heir and her scrawny half- siblings.  Vivi sits in the front of his black BMW sober faced and silent but Jude and Taryn cry the whole way to their new home.  That night, when Jude’s curled up in bed, listening to the even sound of Taryn’s breathing from the twin bed across the room she imagines the crash, imagines Madoc’s face behind the wheel of the oncoming vehicle.   In her heart of hearts she knows that he wasn’t the one responsible for the crash, that he wasn’t anywhere near the intersection of the day a stupid kid was too busy looking at his phone to realise that he had swerved into the oncoming traffic.  Still, that didn’t make the sight of the heavy metal lettering spelling out “Duarte’s Café”, lovingly carved by her father’s hand being unceremoniously ripped from the space above the café and replaced by the cold, corporate logo of Greenbriar an any less bitter pill to swallow.  Nor does it make the big, busy town house feel any more like a home.  Slowly though, Jude adjusts to her new life.  Madoc and his pale wife Oriana are kind in their own stilted way and their son Oak has such a boundless enthusiasm for the arrival of three, new sisters that it makes it hard for Jude to resent the willingness with which she was taken into their family.

Vivi, however, finds no such peace.  She is a thundering torrent of range and resentment and as the years past her anger hones itself into something sharp and brutal. She screams and throws things, delighting in smashing whatever she can lay her hands on.  In desperation Madoc and Oriana send her to a fancy boarding school in the hopes that a new scene will assuage her anger but it takes only a month before she is sent home from the prestigious school and asked never to return there again.  Over the years her screams quieten and she stops smashing things, but Jude can sense the anger in her, bottled tight just beneath the surface.  It’s something of a relief when she arrives at dinner one evening, suitcase in hand, and announces she’s moving across town to live with her girlfriend Heather.  Taryn cries herself to sleep that night, rocked in Jude’s embrace until she falls into a fitful sleep.  It’s only her twin’s tears that stain Jude’s skin that night though, although she feel’s Vivi’s absence like the loss of a limb. The next morning she goes to Madoc and requests a job in the café.  He is inscrutable as he looks at her and although she gazes calmly back at him she wonders if he can sense the loss, the panic that crawls beneath her skin like a living breathing thing. Whether he can sense that she is unravelling like so many threads from a worn tapestry and she has no way to stitch herself back together. That is he says no it is she who will be lost next.   He says yes.

He puts her to work scrubbing dishes in the back with water so hot it scalds her hands and leaves her nails cracked and peeling. But although her hands are sore her heart is lighter than it’s been for several years and soon he is showing her how to balance multiple cups on her arm and the best way to tell when the milk is sufficiently heated to pour into a cappuccino. He has one of the chefs teach her how to make scones so soft they melt in your mouth and allows her to try her hand at painting the day’s deals onto the sign.  Her breathing is shaky, but her hand is steady and when she wipes a paint, splattered hand across her forehead and surveys her work she thinks that this might be enough.

However, although the work sooths her heart and sooths her soul, her colleagues do not.  Their waitress, Nicasia is a vain, self-absorbed girl with a tongue as sharp as the fresh marmalade they serve with the butter biscuits. Her mother is a world famous beautician who has little time for her only daughter apart from to offer criticisms disguised as complements, an art that Nicasia has also perfected.  She is accompanied by thuggish Valerian, who delights in violence and makes a habit of pinching at Jude when she’s carrying plates causing her to smash them on the ground until Jude viciously salts every meal he brings to work and he is forced to halt his campaign or go permanently hungry.  Worst of all is the manager, Cardan, a younger son of the Greenbriar family and is in charge of overseeing the establishment.  Cardan delights in sly taunts and makes it his mission to make Jude’s time there as miserable as possible.   He sneers as she makes cups of coffee and carries plates and does nothing to stop the constant digs that Nicasia and Valerian send her way.  He is not violent towards her like they are, preferring to make her uncomfortable by pinning her with his disconcerting gaze when she is working or giving her cups of coffee with insults scrawled on the takeaway cups. “Excruciating, alarming distressing,” each one an intelligent protest at her presence.  She smiles and drinks the coffee anyway and doesn’t let herself show the shame she feels.  He smiles a knowing smile, as though its written on her face anyway.

She doesn’t know what she’s done to earn his wrath, but he makes it clear that her very presence is an offence to him.

“You don’t belong here, Jude” he tells her pleasantly one day as though remarking on the weather.  “I don’t know why you don’t just give it up and go somewhere else.”  Jude stops still as though he has slapped her and at once, she is eight again and her parents are dead, and the café they made is dead with them. 

“I belong here every bit as much as you,” she hisses with as much venom as she can muster and Cardan blinks once, before grinning a lazy, cat like smile and sauntering off to take a waiting customer’s order.

She hates him.

Then they get a new recruit and she thinks her luck might be changing.  Locke is charming and handsome and seems genuinely interested in her.  He makes her feel like a character from a story book, showering her with complements.  They stay up late together one night, drinking a cheap bottle of wine she borrows from Vivi and watching the stars.  Locke tells her the stories of the constellations, some so outlandish Jude is half sure he is making them up.  His lips are stained dark purple when he kisses her and she almost thinks she’s in love.  Turns out it’s not her he wants, but her sister.  They have been seeing each other too, Taryn confesses tearfully one day.  She stands before the counter in the café, holding hands with Locke who is smirking while Valerian and Nicasia howl with laughter.  Jude’s eyes stare numbly at their intertwined hands and thinks of wine stains and stars and the memory turns to ash in her mouth.  Before she can lose any more of her dignity she sinks into one of the stools at the counter, pointedly ignoring Taryn until she finally leaves.  Strangely, Cardan has been strangely silent as the pantomime plays itself out.  A large group enters and he sends Nicasia to take their drink orders uttering his first words since Taryn had burst through the door with Locke in tow.  Valerian is summoned to fix an order that should have been tuna salad, but somehow ended up with cheese and then she is alone with Cardan.  She cannot look at him, but she also cannot summon the energy to move.  Maybe if she sits there long enough she’ll be left alone until the end of her shift.  Maybe she’ll be fired.  She cannot bring herself to care.

  “Here.” It’s Cardan, he’s standing on the other side of the counter from her, cup of coffee in hand.  She can see the grinds at the bottom of the coffee machine and knows he has made it fresh.  Carefully, he slides the takeaway cup across the counter towards where she is slumped.  The rich scent of coffee drifts pleasantly from inside. “I don’t need a cup of coffee,” Jude snaps angrily, shoving it roughly back towards him, unable to care about the dark scowl she can feel forming on her own face.  “What does it say this time, huh?  Disturbing, warped, fucking awful?  I’m not in the mood for any of your crap at the moment.”

“Just take it, little ant” sighs Cardan.  His face is carefully unreadable as he reaches across the counter and puts his hand on her clenched fist, pressing against where her fingers curled tightly around her thumb.  She is so startled by the touch of his hand on hers that she jerks back, fingers spreading as she recoils away from the warmth of his skin.  Before she can fully process what was happening he had placed the coffee cup into her hands, squeezing securely on top of her own hands as though he is afraid if he lets go she might hurl the cup back across the counter top like some insolent goblin.  Jude feels herself swallowing the insult on the tip of her tongue as the weight of those hands settle over her, almost like a comforting hug and for a moment she feels that small, bitter part of her heart that has been rising up as she thinks of Locke and Taryn twists.  Just as suddenly, his hands are gone, leaving her feeling cold despite the heating that warms the room.  “Take it and go home, Jude.” He says, his tone bored. 

“I can’t go home, I’ve still got another four hours left before I clock out.” She retorts, feeling unsettled at his sudden change in tone and manner.

“I’m the manager, remember?” He says archly, tapping on the badge affixed just under his right shirt collar.  “Get out of here.  I don’t need you in here snapping at the customers and driving off business with your star crossed woes.”

“Like you need any help scaring off customers with your attitude,” says Jude with a role of her eyes, relieved to find that she sounds harsh rather than sad. But she can’t stand the thought of finishing off the shift while Nicasia and Valerian titter over her pathetic love life so the offer is too good to be rejected, even if it has come from him.  “Thanks,” she mutters awkwardly at last, scuffing the tip of one of her converses on the floor as she hops down from the stool, adjusting her skirt with one hand while the other twisted the cup around to read the word “unique” scrawled in a familiar hand over the list of allergens.  She imagines him saying it, imagines his mouth drawing out each syllable but her body does not fill with the familiar flush of shame that normally accompanies his reminders that she doesn’t belong here.  “A little out of tune with your other jabs?” She says with her eyebrows raised.

Cardan does not deign to reply.  He has already turned his back to her to wipe down the nozzle of the steamer and acts as though the whole interaction hasn’t taken place, isn’t still taking place.  Taking the hint, Jude strides towards the exit, cupping the drink tightly in her hands as she steps outside into the bite of the cold, winter air.  And if she tells herself the tingling in her hands is from the warmth of the coffee, nothing more, then that’s that.  There’s nothing more to it. Unconsciously, she lets her fingers trace the fine cursive lettering which runs down the side of the cup all the way home. 

Jude doesn’t see much of Cardan over the next few days.  She’s not scheduled to work at the café over the weekend so she spends most of her time avoiding Taryn, a job made easier by the fact that Taryn seems determined to avoid her too.  But eventually, it’s time for her to return to work.  She spends the day studiously avoiding Cardan’s gaze, determined When her back is turned she can feel dark eyes watching her.  The day is slow, and when night falls Cardan dismisses the rest of the staff claiming that he can deal with the last few customers on his own.  Jude is the last to leave, the sleeve of her coat is trapped in the locker and she is still struggling to remove it when Cardan comes in to the small cloakroom.

“Jude!” He exclaims.  His eyes are wide and he looks briefly childlike in the half dark room as he stares at her in surprise.  Then, he gathers himself and the look is gone.  She can almost see the shutters falling in his eyes.  “I thought you had left.” He says and it’s a statement, but it’s also a question and Jude finds herself wanting to answer even though she’s not sure what he’s really asking. 

She settles for “my coat’s stuck.”  Gesturing lamely to where the offending item of clothing is hanging limply.  He looks at her blankly. 

“Well then get it out,” he says as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world.  “I’ve never known you to be set back by something as trivial as a stuck piece of cloakroom equipment.  Are you sick?”  Jude rolls her eyes but at the same time she feels something warm settle in her stomach.  Although his tone is acerbic Cardan has as good as offered her a complement. 

“I’m getting to it, your majesty.” She shrugs sarcastically.  She realises she’s made a mistake at once when he grins.

“Your majesty,” he pretends to ponder it, eyes glittering wickedly in the dim light.  “I like it.  I think I’ll make it my official title.  Much more fitting than manager.”

“I agree,” she snipes.  “Manager implies you actually manage things here. Majesty is much more fitting for someone who sits around all day letting others do all the work.”

“Why would I want to manage anything when I’ve got you rushing around and making sure nothing falls apart?” He laughs.  “Far more entertaining for me to sit around and gossip with the regulars, although I don’t know why you put so much work into this place, you’re the only person here who cares about this dump.”

Jude bristles.  “This dump,” she snarls, “used to be something great, something precious, and I don’t want to see that go just because some spoilt brat can’t be bothered to manage it properly.”  She is so incensed she has her hand half raised to slap him before she regains control of herself.  He is staring at her, eyes wide at the outburst and his eyes flicker to her hand.  She realises he is afraid she is going to hit him and she lets it drop limply to the side.   She’s better than that. 

To her surprise Cardan doesn’t start shouting, doesn’t leave.  He runs his hand through his dark hair, letting out a huff of air.

“I’m sorry,” he says and she feels her jaw drop.  “I always do this with you.  I can’t say the right thing, be nice, be better and so I say the worst possible thing instead.”  Jude regards him wearily but he continues. 

“I meant that you’re a great employee the place would be falling apart without you.”  The words fall heavily from his lips and he is staring at her, his eyes dark, and normally she would resent that stare but it feels different now.  She can tell it has cost him greatly to admit this to her, can see in his eyes that he is waiting for her to strike back now he has laid this out for her, now he has made himself vulnerable.  But she is no longer angry, and he seems to be able to read that in her face as the tension flows out of him. 

“You mean you think I’m better than Nicasia and Valerian?” She is unable to stop the question from flowing from her lips but he doesn’t pounce on it the way she expects.  Instead he shakes his head, laughter in his eyes and she imagines him sneering “you, better?  You barely belong.”

Instead he surprises her again by saying “you’re the best employee here.”  She looks at him suspiciously, but he seems sincere.  Rather than push the cat and mouse game any further she returns to the loosening of her coat, deciding to ignore Cardan completely.  However, he stretches up his arms and his shirt, loose from the day’s work, rides up out of his pants revealing the hint of a tattoo on his left hipbone.

“Is that, a tail?”  Jude gasps, reaching unthinkingly out to run her fingers over the sinuous, dark shape she can see peeking out over the top of his waistband. 

“It’s not a tail.” Cardan drawls, making no move to push her away.  “It’s an ouroboros, a symbol that dates back to the ancient Egyptians.” 

“You have a tail!” Crows Jude delightedly, ignoring his explanation in favour of examining the tattoo in more detail.  At a distance it looks a little like a circle but as she bends her head to inspect it more closely she can make out the fine, scaled pattern that runs through the length of it.  “I always said you were beastly, now I have the proof!”  As she speaks, she prods him firmly in the chest and turns to look at his face.  Her laughter stops abruptly.  Suddenly she realises just how close she has come, realises that her hand still lingers on his bare chest, how close they are together.   His eyes, always dark, are like pools of midnight as he stares down at her and she barely managed to supress a shiver. If Cardan is a beast, then he was one with sharp claws and wicked teeth and he wants to swallow her whole. 

“By all means, continue your molestations,” he smirks “don’t mind me.  I’ll just stand here while you accost my personage.” 

“I’d like to see you spell personage,” mutters Jude, withdrawing her hand reluctantly from his firm chest.

“What was that, dearest one?” Cardan’s grin is mischievous as he continues to lean rakishly across the wall of lockers so that his stomach remains exposed.  He carelessly unbuttons one cuff, deliberately leaving the front of the shirt untucked as he continues to smile wolfishly at Jude.  Jude stares back, determined not to let him see how flustered she is by his naked flesh or the moment of intimacy they had just shared.  She is satisfied to see him blink at her own, pointed look and he shuffles slightly on his feet, his abdomen tensing as he moves.  He doesn’t look away from her though, even as he starts to slowly tuck the shirt back into his pants.

“Don’t.”  For a split second Jude wonders if perhaps someone else has entered the small storage space and spoken.  Maybe Taryn has come to find her and has wondered in after them.  Maybe she is going mad and have started to hallucinate.  Then the realisation that it was her own, treacherous mouth which had uttered the word sinks in.  She is startled to realise she doesn’t regret it.  That she is relieved she had said it.  The magnetic force that draws them together is pulling her down and there was only one way to assuage its demanding pressure.

“Don’t what, exactly?” Cardan asks and Jude is relieved to see that despite the levity in his tone his grin falters briefly at her word.  It is that, perhaps, more than anything else that gives her the courage to step forward and place her hands over his own, stilling them over his belt.

“I said,” she murmurs, leaning in so close that she can feel the force of his breath against her cheek.  “Don’t, do that.” Her heart is pounding fast in her chest and she imagines that, if only she listened closely enough, she might hear Cardan’s heart beating ferociously in a matching, unrelenting rhythm with her own.  

“Jude.”  He whispers her name so quietly, so reverently that she isn’t sure she heard him.  Isn’t sure he’d even meant to say it aloud. There is something so heavy in the word that for a moment she feels her bravado fading leaving behind a crushing shyness that makes her want to flee, but even as her name falls from Cardan’s lips, he is lowering his face towards her and carefully, pointedly, pressing his lips to hers in a searing kiss.  Any thought of flight flees from her mind after that.  Despite his harshness, his kiss is soft, softer even than the sound of her name on his tongue and it is all Jude can do to stop herself from sinking into the feeling of him kissing her.  All thoughts of the Locke, of her sister’s betrayal leave her mind as he tentatively cups her face in his hands, deepening the kiss until the only thing she can do with any sense of certainty is kiss him back.  She does just that, snaking her hands under the bottom of his shirt to feel the heat radiating through his body as she offers hungry, greedy kisses of her own.  Finally, when she thought she was ready to burst from the lush, heady sensation of kiss he pulls back, lips swollen and eyes wine dark.

“What was that you said before about molesting?” She gasps and he lets out a sharp bark of laughter. He is breathing heavily against her and he grins broadly so the tips of his teeth glint in the light.

“That was hardly molestation, my little ant.  That was a full on debauching.” Cardan stretches out his arm and pulls her in an unwieldly motion so that she staggers to rest fully atop him.  If he releases her she will fall.  “I am a branch, swaying in the wake of your storm.  Have mercy, or I will be felled beneath your tempestuous whims.”  Jude laughs at the ridiculousness of the statement, at the ridiculousness of them. But as he kisses her again in the cloakroom of her parent’s café, she can’t help feeling like perhaps, just maybe she is home.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I read the Cruel Prince on the train to London yesterday and the Wicked King on the way back today and had to get this out of my system. I am hungover and this is not proofed, so sorry. Hope ya enjoyed.


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